500 gig Discs?

  Quote

A disc that can store 500 gigabytes (GB) of data, equivalent to 100 DVDs, has been unveiled by General Electric.

 

The micro-holographic disc, which is the same size as existing DVD discs, is aimed at the archive industry.

 

But the company believes it can eventually be used in the consumer market place and home players.

 

Blu-ray discs, which are used to store high definition movies and games, can currently hold between 25GB and 50GB.

 

Micro-holographic discs can store more data than DVDs or Blu-ray because they store information on the disc in three dimensions, rather than just pits on the surface of the disc

 

The challenge for this area of technology has been to increase the reflectivity of the holograms that are stored on the discs so that players can be used to both read and write to the discs.

 

Brian Lawrence, who leads GE's Holographic Storage said on the GE Research blog: "Very recently, the team at GE has made dramatic improvements in the materials enabling significant increases in the amount of light that can be reflected by the holograms."

 

More capacity

 

The higher reflectivity that can be achieved, the more capacity for the disc. While the technology is still in the laboratory stage, GE believes it will take off because players can be built which are backwards compatible with existing DVD and Blu-ray technologies.

 

In a statement the firm said: "The hardware and formats are so similar to current optical storage technology that the micro-holographic players will enable consumers to play back their CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs."

 

''GE's breakthrough is a huge step toward bringing our next generation holographic storage technology to the everyday consumer,'' said Mr Lawrence in a statement.

 

He added: "The day when you can store your entire high definition movie collection on one disc and support high resolution formats like 3D television is closer than you think.''

 

Micro-holographic technology has been one of the leading areas of research for storage experts for decades. Discs are seen as a reliable and effective form of storage and are both consumer and retail friendly.

 

However, General Electric will need to work with hardware manufacturers if it is to bring the technology to the consumer market.

 

The relatively modest adoption of Blu-ray discs sales globally might be an issue with some companies who believe digital distribution and cloud computing is the long-term answer to content delivery and storage.

 

"This is truly a breakthrough in the development of the materials that are so critical to ultimately bringing holographic storage to the everyday consumer," said Mr Lawrence.

-bbc

why is your flash avatar raping my cpu usage

your computer has too much shit running at once, or has a very slow processor.

haha wow, it is. 70% cpu on a 3ghz dual core. must be the onboard graphics.

*buys GE stock*

flash avatars should be banned.

  azatoth said:

flash avatars should be banned.

Yeah seriously, Glass Plate's avatar slows down my internet browser. Plus I can't adblock it.

  Glass Plate said:

your computer has too much shit running at once, or has a very slow processor.

haha fuck 2.8 ghz quad core w/ 4870 1g hitting 50 - 75% cpu usage.

it's your avatar.

well yeah I guess more-so your graphics card, because all the computers at my school aren't bothered at all by it.

also, you can right click and press "play" to stop it.

I will make a less intense version later for you guys though.

I've heard Greg The Hammer Valentine's face is less cpu intensive, GP

I have the same problem on both my home and work computers, it's your avatar.

  Glass Plate said:

I will make a less intense version later for you guys though.

Please do as your avatar is fucking up everyones computer....

Yeah my comp slows down a ton cause of that avatar.

I've asked Glass Plate to change it.

ok, is this one better? Also, I've had that as my avatar for quite a while, why'd it take so long for people to even notice?

  Glass Plate said:

your computer has too much shit running at once, or has a very slow processor.

quad core 2.4 4gb ram 8800gt 512mb vram still around 70% cpu usage?

now 50% with the new av

Still too high - change it or we're gonna have to disable Flash avatars. Perhaps look into the framerate or something?

ok BAM! now more efficient. Lets get back to talking about these discs.

why can't we have solidstate drives this powerful? I want like 500 tb drives to be cheap.

is that even normal for a flash avatar to take up that much usage?

Well it's generative action script animation, and before some of them had up to 50 to 100 items moving at once.

  david said:

is that even normal for a flash avatar to take up that much usage?

No, it's quite normal for a poorly made one :laughing:

Kidding aside, thanks for changing it Glass Plate, and everyone should clear your caches to ensure the latest version of his avatar loads so you get the newest one.

they've been talking about 200GB Blu-Ray discs since the format came out... until it's at retail, and affordable, it's really nothing more than a "gee whiz" kind of thing. Practical application is where it's at.

I don't know why waste it on discs though, one scratch ruins it, and that happens so easily. Flash drives and solidstate flash memory cards just make so much more since. I mean we already know SD cards are already replacing discs.

  Glass Plate said:

I don't know why waste it on discs though, one scratch ruins it, and that happens so easily. Flash drives and solidstate flash memory cards just make so much more since. I mean we already know SD cards are already replacing discs.

Yes, because I just went down to my local record shop and bought the latest Depeche Mode on USB drive.

NO

yes because i went to the local store and bought 500GB worth of music in one disc.